What a beautiful raspberry and almond friand made by my friend Bintou. A little morsel of edible art really. Even though I regard food such as this as “sometimes” food, I am only human. I, too, love the odd bit of special “sometimes” food, even though I don’t have a particularly sweet tooth and I may well by one of the few people in the world who isn’t that keen on chocolate (except a salty caramel dark choc to be taken with an expresso). (photo of friand by Christine Fischer)

But what I do love is homemade, personal, well sourced ingredients, and cakes made with love and care. I also love it when those cakes, muffins, etc are made with organic or alternative flours, less sugar or even no sugars, using agave, maple, dates or stevia. I also think, just like Mary Berry, that a little scone, still warm from the oven, spread with good butter and homemade strawberry jam is just the bees knees, and I think I have my scone recipe (made with spelt flour) off pat. I might even be immodest enough to boast that my date & cardamon scones are the best in the city.

I also believe that there is a shopkeeper in all of us. It’s just a thing humans like to do, trade stuff, sell stuff, talk about what we’ve made, what we love, be it knitting or food.We do love to be appreciated and to talk “shop”, don’t we? I’ve been writing about food, experimenting with it, developing recipes and sharing food for most all of my life and now I am about to put my muffin so to speak where my mouth is. We, my friend Bintou and I, have a small 2 metre space in a start up venture called The Barbershop & Co in The Hague. We will join up with an Israeli/Palastinian duo called Love & Peas and a few others in a food hall, hoping our wares will find favour with the locals. We will use recipes, tried and tested that our friends and family love, and see if small and personal will find strike a note.

Our plates will all be second hand, knickknacks, and things lent to us by friends in an effort to be as sustainable as we can . We will try to buy nothing new to set up and decorate our little space. And we will see if we can complete against the large stores such as the newly opened Marks & Spencers who sell scones for 85 cents or the brioches at Albert Heijn – 6 for 2.98??? Although we can’t complete with such cheapness, we shall do our very best to make some beautiful food, so do pop in if you are in the area.

Our opening day is March 7 from 11 am to 15.00 at The Barbershop & Co on Torenstraat 35a. We will let you know what and when we are cooking and what’s on offer on our FB page Cakes Galore – & more

Beetroot & Dill Dip

And now a recipe. I catered for the launch of the New Zealand foundation KIN which will replace the KEA Netherlands chapter at their launch party on Saturday at De Wandelaar. I made a number of dips, hummus, tapanade etc but the most requested recipe was the very simple beetroot dip. Take a medium cooked beetroot, and blend with a small clove of garlic, some fresh dill, a squeeze of lemon or lime juice, some mint leaves and a cup of either creme fraiche (can use Greek yoghurt as well). Blend, season with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Sprinkle with black onion seeds (Nigella seeds) t0 finish. Serve with sliced carrots, cucumber, crackers or strips of toasted lavas.

Blogroll

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Originally posted on The Compassion Collective Blog: We can hardy believe it’s that time of year again when we have the perfect excuse to eat lots of yummy cakes! It also means it was a year ago I disguised myself as a piggy for our photo above which snuffled its way into our local Dorset newspapers!…

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I've been writing about food, experimenting with it, developing recipes and sharing food for most all of my life and now I am about to put my muffin so to speak where my mouth is. We, my friend Bintou and I, have a small 2 metre space in a start up venture called The Barbershop & Co in The Hague.

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